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2/21/2015

Gender Bend Portraits! (Personal views)

It's my very first blog post here, though I've been blogging before on Blogger, Multiply and Wordpress but failed :P

After Facebook barged into the social media trend, I moved my writing habit on Facebook and for me it's easier too since you get to interact easily with friends and feel more comfortable about what you post, which is not always the same case though (I've been into some problems from updating a status on my wall).

Enough of that, I'm going straight to the point. Yup, I've been wondering a while "What do I look like if I were a guy?" and I've been picturing what kind of hairstyle I would do, which facial hair suits me best and how tall I would be (I'm a shorty, can't help it). So then I started imagining myself painting a self-portrait in my male version. I was not confident enough to draw myself, yet myself as a guy. It's a rare thing for me to paint realistic self portraits but I somehow confident enough to draw other people's faces.

One day, I said to myself "Why not?" and took some selfies (ugh, I have to use that word anyway) then I coiled myself in bed. "NO NO NO NO NO," my face is just too flawless. I mean, too many flaws. I know, I have some issues especially with my baby cheeks (read: puffy, fat face) and if anyone would want to paint my face realistically, I would look at him/her intently and tilted my face a bit and say "You should check your head or something." and knock on their heads, like SERIOUSLY. Why would you wanna paint my face?? :((

Okay, going crazy now, back to topic. I was not satisfied with the selfies I took because of the poor yellowish lighting from the room (my house lights are yellow, I don't know why) and the camera filters won't cooperate with me. When night comes and it's time for bed, I put on my pink bedside lamp and just lay there on bed, trying to close my eyes. Suddenly, my boyfriend sent a text to me, telling me good night while he already awake in the morning (long-distant relationship between different continents and hemisphere :') ) which is our usual habit.

As always, he would like to see my face before going to bed. I'm too lazy to put on the light so I relied on my bedside lamp. I took some selfies and I surprised myself. Like, whaaaaat. I look so different under pink lights and shadow. I look more.. androgynous. You can't tell if it's a guy or girl.

I told my boyfriend "Hey, I look handsome in this picture." He would not admit. He just admitted that I look different. I still insist that I have traces of Hiro Mizushima's features :>

There, my Asian Angelina Jolie face ^^

Then we talked about how would we look like if we ever able to change gender/sex/whatever which leads me to sleep near midnight. Thanks a lot, brain. A few months later, I downloaded Photoshop CC 2014 on Creative Cloud (the torrent version sucks, so I download the original and hopefully I can stay this way :>) to my new computer where it is so compatible with Bamboo Pad. I'm so amazed and relieved with the pen performance on this software and I don't think I would want to switch back to my old computer to do art stuff. I started to redraw my scanned drawings and its result is amazing.

"I Love Shoes" by AmelStrange (my previous name)

Then, I came to a realisation "Wait, isn't this the same as tracing?" and then my face just go oooooh. I don't have study my face anymore just to draw it on paper. WOOHOOOOO.

I know this sounds pathetic and I don't like the idea of tracing at all, but I just opened my photo file and started tracing my face with brush anyway (I still have no idea how to use pen tool :>, help me out!). Then I adjusted my face to a more masculine feature and thicken those invisible brows. I always like the idea of goatee, so I would like to wear one if I ever can grow a beard. My reference for the beard comes from Trent Reznor, here it is.

Trent Reznor from Rolling Stone cover magazine

But my face is just too short, so I have to lengthen it a bit :'> et voila...

Handsome me, yay!

As soon as I posted it on Instagram, many 'artists' (read: spammers) start liking it, along with my school friends. Then came the mischievous comments (especially from my boyfriend, Prama).

I look like Sifu (Kung Fu Panda), he said T-T

Then my friend, Rara, decided to spread the trend by making her own gender bend self portrait hours later.

DANG, SON!

I also wondered how would I look like without the goatee, and here it is..

Look much younger than before.. and more like some Japanese actor :'>

"Better," said Prama. And of course it looks like him more, crazy! One of my friends told me that I look like an Indonesian musician, Dewa Budjana.

OH GOD, THAT SAME NOSE

Rara dared her friends to do the same and hopefully they will so the trend will spread, mwahahaha. Oh, and one more portrait that I did but it's still in progress.

Prama, his diva version of himself

Crazy thing, right? I dare you do the same thing, fellow artists out there! I know I'm not the first one to pioneer this, but hey, LET'S SPREAD THE TREND!